Joining 74 Squadron in the autumn of 1938, John Freeborn was to become its longest serving pilot, seeing continuous action in the skies over Dunkirk, throughout the Battle of Britain and into the spring of 1941. In that time he was credited with 13 combat victories and one shared — though the total was very likely higher — and he won two DFCs. He flew more operational hours than any other pilot during the Battle of Britain.
He was also involved on the second day of the war in a tragic episode, the misdirected interception of what were mistakenly assumed to be enemy aircraft over the Thames Estuary, which resulted in the squadron’s Spitfires shooting down two Hurricanes, one of whose pilots was killed. The episode was subsequently christened the “The Battle of Barking Creek”.
John Connell Freeborn was born in Middleton, Leeds, in 1919, the son of a branch manager with the Yorkshire Penny Bank. He was educated at Leeds Grammar School from where he joined the RAF Reserve of Officers in January 1938. A natural pilot, he went solo after only 4 hours 20 minutes and was credited with phenomenal accuracy in air firing exercises.
In October 1938 he was posted to 74 Squadron, which was equipped with Spitfires the following February. In July 1939 he was one of the 74 Squadron pilots who took their Spitfires to France to celebrate Bastille Day with the French Air Force.
When war broke out on September 3, 1939, the squadron was based at Hornchurch. From there, on September 6 it was scrambled to intercept what were thought to be a pair of Messerschmitt 109s, but were in fact Hurricanes of 56 Squadron which had themselves been scrambled from North Weald on an early-morning air raid alert. Both Hurricanes were shot down, Freeborn accounting for the aircraft of Montague Hulton-Harrop who was killed. The pilot of the second Hurricane survived.
At the subsequent general court martial both Spitfire pilots felt that they were let down by their own commanding officer, the soon-to-be-celebrated ace “Sailor” Malan, who gave evidence against them, appearing to try to evade responsibility for his squadron’s attack. Nevertheless, both his pilots were completely exonerated over what was regarded as a tragic accident. Fighter direction by ground controllers was at that stage a long way from the sophistication it was to achieve in the Battle of Britain.
When the “Phoney War” period came to an end with the Wehrmacht’s Blitzkrieg against France and the Low Countries in May 1940, Freeborn was soon in action with 74 Squadron, covering the British Expeditionary Force’s retreat to, and escape from, Dunkirk. A Junkers Ju 88 he attacked on May 21 remained unconfirmed, but on the following day he had his first combat victory over one of these twin-engined bombers over the sea north of Calais. In six intensive days of air fighting 74 Squadron scored 19 confirmed kills, two of them credited to Freeborn. Finally, he was himself hit by fire from Ju88s and had to force-land his Spitfire and make his way to Calais, from where he was returned in a Blenheim to England.
Throughout July and August No74’s engagement with the Luftwaffe was one of unremitting intensity. On August 11 the squadron was scrambled on no fewer than four occasions. Freeborn shot down two Me110s and a 109 that day and counted a further 109 as a “probable”. By the time he was awarded his first DFC on August 17 he had at least seven combat victories under his belt and many probables — and had been shot down once again, on the very day of his award.
He was made a flight commander on August 28, and continued to take a toll of the enemy on a seamless spell of operations that lasted until well beyond the conclusion of the Battle of Britain, to the very end of 1940. By the time he was rested from operations in March 1941 he had been in continuous frontline service for ten months, an extraordinary record. He had been awarded a Bar to his DFC in February.
He now spent a period with an operational training unit instructing overseas pilots on flying the Spitfire, before going to the US, first to train pilots at bases in Alabama and then to test and evaluate new American types including the P51 Mustang, P38 Lightning and the P47 Thunderbolt.
By December 1942 he was back on operations with 602 (Spitfire) Squadron, escorting bombers in attacks on German shipping and installations on the Dutch and French coasts. In June 1943 he was appointed CO of 118 Squadron, a Spitfire unit again escorting bombing raids, before being sent to Italy in 1944 as Wing Commander Flying of 286 Wing, which was tasked both with the air defence of Allied airfields and installations in Italy and attacks on German targets in the Balkans. At the end of the war he was in a training post at RAF Netheravon.
He left the RAF as a wing commander in 1946 and for some years worked for Tetley Walker as regional director for the company’s Minster brand of soft drinks. In retirement he moved to Spain but had latterly returned to the UK and lived in Southport, Merseyside.
Though he had been cleared of any blame for the death of Montague Hulton-Harrop in 1939, his fellow RAF fighter pilot’s death in such circumstances was always in his thoughts. Only last year he said: “I think about him nearly every day. I always have done. I’ve had a good life — and he should have had a good life, too.”
His wife, Rita, whom he married during the war and with whom he had a daughter, died in 1980. In 1983 he married his second wife, Peta. She died in 2001.
Wing Commander John Freeborn, DFC and Bar, wartime fighter ace, was born on December 1, 1919. He died on August 28, 2010, aged 90
At a time when British soldiers are returning from Afghanistan maimed by improvised explosive devices (IEDs), it is heartening to reflect on the positive, post-conflict experience of one officer who was severely disabled in North Africa during the Second World War.
Lieutenant Geoffrey Daish nearly died in Tunisia in 1943 when his Royal Engineer troop was caught in a minefield. After his right leg was amputated above the knee, it took eight months of medical care before he was able to work, yet he forged a career as an engineer engaged in the development of jet engines for aircraft, first with Frank Whittle at Power Jets and then with Armstrong Siddeley. Later, he became involved in pioneering work with Rolls-Royce Anstey on gas turbine engines for power generation for the oil and gas industry and the Royal Navy.
At the time of his injury there was no penicillin available to prevent infection and artificial limbs were still relatively primitive. Nevertheless, after rehabilitation, he began walking in Scotland and played competitive tennis into his fifties.
His stamina can be put down to his early focus on physical exercise and to his stoic family background. An enthusiast for courses in body strengthening, he rowed for the winning Magdalene College first boat in the May Bumps at Cambridge, where he had followed his father, the distinguished civil servant Tom Daish.
After being discharged from the Army, he joined Frank Whittle’s Power Jets as a technician, working on the development of early jet engines and analysing the new technology of flight test measurement experiments using Lancaster bombers. When Power Jets was dissolved in 1946, he transferred to Armstrong Siddeley, continuing to develop jet engines after the merger with the Bristol Aero Engine Company in 1959. After Bristol Siddeley was in turn merged with Rolls-Royce, he focused on the development of gas turbine propelled engines for marine and industrial purposes.
His pioneering work in jet propulsion was extended to gas turbines and led to some impressive developments. Over a 20-year period, the Royal Navy’s new generation of frigates, destroyers and carriers were equipped not with steam but with gas turbine propulsion. Daish worked on the performance measurement and control systems, including those of HMS Invincible and HMS Illustrious.
The technology was soon extended to industrial use in electricity generation, so the blackouts of the 1970s were eliminated through gas turbine engines which could generate electricity, at the peak load, within minutes. A further extension of its use was in the extraction of oil and gas from the North Sea.
Retirement from industry brought him the pleasure of painting — especially of aircraft, for which he was to win a number of disabled servicemen’s awards. He won a fine arts award in the War Pensioners 1990 National Homecraft and Art Exhibition with a painting of restoration work being undertaken on a Spitfire. This painting also won the RAF Association Trophy in the Midlands region presented to him in January 1991.
His love of writing poetry resulted in three books of collected works. One of his poems won the Financial Times Christmas Literary Competition; entitled The Lost Leader it was written, with the help of a little Glenmorangie, after Margaret Thatcher resigned as Prime Minister in 1990. The opening stanza read:
But for a couple of voters she left us Faced with defeat in the very first round Forced to resign, though misfortune bereft us Upset the market, devalued the pound.
He read his final poem about the obscure ancient City office of Deputy Gauger, to which he had been appointed, at a banquet in London’s Guildhall in 2006 shortly before one of his two sons-in-law, now Sir John Stuttard, became Lord Mayor of London.
The wartime amputation of his leg resulted in frequent pain and discomfort which he endured for almost 70 years. It also had a strange side effect. Every time the variable English weather was about to change, his injury informed him long before the Meteorological Office announced their forecast. Daish never sought sympathy or special attention. His disability did not prevent him from achieving more than the average man. He had a successful career and remained fit and independent to the end.
His wife Elizabeth, née McCall, predeceased him. He is survived by two daughters.
Geoffrey Daish, marine and industrial engineer, was born on February 28, 1920. He died on July 18, 2010, aged 90
